Microsoft's Home Use Program (HUP) is a benefit offered to its business customers, which allows enterprise customers to sell copies of Office at discounted prices to its employees, as long they're paying for Microsoft's Software Assurance plans. Up until now, this simply allowed employees at eligible companies to subscribe to Office 365 ProPlus at a discount, or purchase Office Professional Plus 2019 or Office Home and Business 2019 for just $14.99, but Microsoft is expanding the benefit to include Office 365 Home and Personal subscriptions.

As reported by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, who got the tip from The Licensing School in the UK, those working for eligible organizations can now also get an Office 365 subscription to use at home, in either Personal or Home variants, with a noticeable 30% discount. An annual subscription to Office 365 Personal is usually $69.99, while the Home offering goes up to $99.99. To be eligible for HUP, businesses will either need to be paying for Software Assurance or have a specific number of Office 365/Microsoft 365 licenses.

To make this even more appealing, Microsoft is making it so that those who take advantage of this discounted pricing can actually keep renewing their subscription for the same fee, even if they leave the organization or if the company is no longer eligible for the discount. You'll also still be able to buy a non-subscription version of Office 2019 for $14.99, though Microsoft believes that's a bad option.

In a statement to ZDNet, a Microsoft's spokesperson said: "Customers have been asking for an Office HUP offering and these updates are meant to support those requests."

Additionally, it looks like HUP is finally coming to the United States, where it hadn't been available before. The official website tells users to check back "in early 2019", so an official launch should be imminent.

For regions where it's already available, managing the Home Use Program is now done through the Microsoft Store for Business, instead of the Volume License Service Center or the Business Center Portal.